RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   6. RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps (Jones, John (US))
>
>I have to ask, what kind of "interactive tax" do unix system vendors
>charge for telnet/VT100/VT220 access?  I don't know for sure, but I
>strongly suspect the answer is $0.


AFAIK, you're right. OTOH, one might easily consider any fees for Oracle to be 
a "database tax", etc. It was the user community that took to the term 
"interactive tax"; so, I suppose any charges beyond base hardware and operating 
system could be called a "[some feature] tax".

If I wanted twinax-style terminals and similar device/controller/SNA support on 
a unix system, is it available simply by plugging in a controller card? Or will 
I need to pay some additional "[unix option] tax"? I really have no idea. But 
it's not as meaningful since that's not the direction things went.

Before the "interactive tax", AS/400s were more or less all priced similarly. 
There wasn't as much distinction between the 'server' systems that had 
zero/minimum interactive and the systems that sold with a lot of interactive 
capability. When the big price difference came about, it wasn't exactly by IBM 
suddenly charging _more_ for the interactive systems and leaving the price 
point for 'servers' where it was. It came mostly by IBM drastically _reducing_ 
the price point of 'server' systems. (IIRC)

So, it wasn't by adding a "tax"; it was by slashing off a big discount. Those 
that didn't need it didn't have to pay for it. Is that concept different for 
unix vendors?

Tom Liotta